Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Shankar Jaikishan: Awaara (1951/1975) aka The Vagabond

The first Bollywood Lp I ever got, Awaara is a classic. I can listen to the whole album; all the songs seem to have a little something special. The Shankar Jaikishan team certainly impressed me with my first taste of Hindustani (Indian) music. The hit songs from Awaara are “Ek DoTeen” sung by one of my favorite, but unusual voices, Shamshad Begum, and “Awaara Hoon” the title track. The songs that I really enjoy, well ….wait….I really do like all of them. Ok then, so the one I like the least is “Naiya TeriManjhdhar” because it’s just not that pretty to listen too then the others. But the last track, which is actually two songs but intertwined, ”Tere Bina Aag Yeh Chandni” and “Ghar Aaya MeraPardesi” is especially impressive. The song takes us on a 10 minute ride into the fantastic imaginary world of the protagonist, a dreamlike world that with the help of Lata’s voice is very haunting. Manna Dey then takes over with the drums for the nightmarish part, and then Lata comes back with the dark but hopeful “Ghar Aaya Mera Pardesi”. The screaming at the end is a forerunner to what will come in Bollywood music in the 60’s and 70’s.

*Extra*: Something I Noticed About the Movie

I put the videos for fun, but some have English subtitles, so you can understand (unless you already speak Hindi). It was interesting and I was surprised at the directness in the song "Dam Bhar Jo Udhar Munh Phere" about sex, and towards the fact that they say they want to make love to each other and probably do. You would have never seen that in a popular American musical in the 50's. There is some sexual tension, at the end of "Ab Raat Guzarne Wali Hai" and I also have a supplementary clip that I found on you tube that either proves that Nargis and Raj Kapoor (the principal actors) were very good actors or were fery good lovers. You decide, and tell me what you think about the music and the clips.

I won't always do this but since it is easy to find all the clip for Awaara, I put them beside the track listing.

Raj Kapoor and Nargis had a pretty notorious and lengthy affair, as I understand it. Ooh dear! Watching the film is almost voyeuristic, they're so comfortable and intimately familiar-seeming with each other.

Thanks SO MUCH for posting this soundtrack as well. I just watched the film in these past couple days and fell in love with it; the music was just divine.

Stella_1

Welcome to my first blog, I have a small collection of Bollywood records, and I would like to share them with all the music lovers out there. So have fun, hate it, love it , put your hands on your ears or dance the night away, whatever you do, you can always complain or praise the sounds on Parties, Sarees and Melodies.

Stella_1's score

5/5: The best record on earth4.5/5: All the songs are very good4/5: Most of the songs are really good3.5/5: Good3/5: O.K.2.5/5: No good songs, but listenable2/5: Bad1.5/5: Really Bad1/5: Never listening to that again0.5/5: It hurts my ears0/5: I can't even call it music